Re: Recent changes to the WCAG 2.2 SC 2.1.1 Understanding page

Just picking up on the first two points:

On 02/08/2024 04:49, Steve Green wrote:
> Completely by accident, I recently found that the WCAG 2.2 SC 2.1.1 
> Understanding page was modified on 04 July 2024. Two notes have been 
> added, stating that the use of non-standard (and even non-discoverable) 
> keyboard interactions is not a non-conformance. The page did not 
> previously mention non-standard interactions at all, and it raises a 
> number of issues and questions:
> 
>  1. This is one of the original WCAG 2.0 success criteria from 2008. The
>     new notes reverse the interpretation that we have applied for the
>     last 16 years. I have never heard of anyone interpreting the SC the
>     way we now have to.

Interestingly, in my last three jobs doing audits, we have always 
interpreted it exactly the way it is now, exactly because the normative 
language of the SC even back in 2008 never said anything about the 
keyboard interactions needing to be "standard" (especially because there 
IS no "standard" anywhere, nothing normative anyway ... maybe 
"de-facto"/"best practice"/"most browsers seem to do it this way" but 
nothing else), or "discoverable" (however that may be defined). So folks 
have been imagining these extra requirements that aren't actually in the 
normative requirement on their own, with no actual basis in either the 
normative wording of the SC, nor the understanding document or any 
related techniques.

So this addition not so much reverses the interpretation, but clarifies 
that that interpretation was never intended in the first place.


>  2. Was this change discussed anywhere? On GitHub, the most recent
>     discussion I could find petered out in 2021 without a conclusion.

These changes are discussed in AGWG meetings, generally as part of the 
WCAG 2.x backlog task force's work.

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Friday, 2 August 2024 08:55:17 UTC